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Aug 11, 2003

Cast of thousands and record-breaking ?49m budget to put story of emperor Cyrus on celluloid for the first time.
The Guardian - An action adventure with a cast of thousands about the Persian emperor Cyrus is set to become the most expensive British film ever made.
Oscar-nominated director Alex Jovey, who has only made one previous feature, hopes to start shooting the $80m (?49m) epic in December. It is the first film about the shepherd boy who founded an empire that stretched from the Mediterranean to India. Jovey, 32, said he wanted to create spectacular battle scenes reminiscent of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers but with the sweep of Lawrence of Arabia "and the kind of authenticity you can only get by using thousands of extras". He is amazed that the story of Cyrus's rise in the sixth century BC has gone untold on celluloid.
ContinueResource:Guardian, BBC Persian, dcpersian